


What Was Needed

by Raynidreams



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-10
Updated: 2012-02-10
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Jean on Caprica after the fall. (A wish for Rose_Griffes)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Was Needed

Jean was the one to spot the hut. She froze upon seeing it, her stomach so seared with hunger pangs that she was worried at first, should it be a mirage bought on by desperation. However, when she pointed it out to Sam, his face fixed upon it with such a rapt expression that she melted, sure it couldn't be a trick of the mind and, or stomach. Unless they were both suffering from the same starving delusion.

"Please gods, T, let it have some food," she whispered as they crouched next to each other, stooping below the level of the fern and damp foliage. Their faces camouflaged with grass stains and mud. He stared at it, and then glanced back at her. His concern and pessimism not veiled quick enough before he gave her a huge reassuring smile.

Jean just shook her head. "You suck at lying, even white ones, you know?"

Sam's grin slipped and he bumped his forehead against hers twice. The first time companionably, slightly rolling his head side to side, then the second while saying wearily, "Touch wood, then hey?"

Jean squinted at him; noting how his flashy tan had faded and how new lines and dark circles were marring his once perfect looks. "Well there's plenty of that in that pretty scull of yours, T, so I think it's a better shot than the centuries old trunk behind us." Barolay tried the joke out, but it fell flat without any of her usual, or former, sprightliness to give it a spark.

Sam's mouth moved into a fake grin of support anyway, before he bumped sculls with her one last time, and then moved off through the growth.

The shifted closer to the hut watchfully. Metre at a time; wariness and caution etched into every movement; care given to every footfall placed. The hut seemed a bit  _too much_  like good fortune for them to run over to it like temple fountains. In the last few weeks, they'd seen first hand how conniving their enemy could be: a convenient supply wagon parked on the highway which blew as soon as it was started had taken out a crew of high altitude mountaineers they'd come across (and the kid who used to be the Buccaneer's mascot with them). The damage caused by the explosion had left the mountaineers (and the poor kid) in splatters of unidentifiable matter across a thirty foot radius, and Jean now swallowed against the bile which rose in her throat from the memory as she and Sam closed in on this new potential trap. When they came to the edge of the clearing set around the hut, she shook herself –  _Gods_ , it wasn't even as if the supply truck had been the worst of what she'd seen. Before the Last Day – as she and the other C-Bucks were calling it - she'd never even seen a dead body. Now she'd lost count of the ones they'd buried with the makeshift tools they'd acquired along the way.

She took a calming breath, her eyes fixed on their goal as Sam scanned everywhere else; his keen gaze taking in the sky and the distant tree line for any distinctive black shapes descending or the flash of silver that meant  _run_  or  _die_. He did this for a long time, while she examined every inch of the hut visible; looking for movement, wires or smoke. They depended upon their eyes in this necessary recon, but it was in fact their ears that they'd come to rely on the most in these last few weeks. The ears able to detect the slightest snap of a branch, the hum of those terrifying metal bats in the sky, or the drone of a chrome-job's approach. All of them dreamt of those sounds now, they'd talked about it to try and work through the fear; pointlessly it seemed, for all the difference it had made - Jean still woke at least three times each night in the grip of frozen terror, where even with her eyes open and being hushed by Sam, the sounds carried with her into waking for long moments.

Minutes passed as they completed their assessment; then they looked to one another. Sam gave a little shrug of his shoulder and it was Jean who decided. She nodded. They had to take the risk. Their food rations were low; and they and the rest of the survivors they'd found were starving. Without much needed rations, and soon, they wouldn't be able to go on.

Sam closed his eyes at her nod, then gestured with his hand that she stay low while he ventured out. At this, the redhead rolled her own eyes and moved out first, keeping low but edging out ahead of him. There was no way she was going to let Sam take any risk that she wasn't –  _they were a team._ On the field, they worked as a matching lethal duo, more so than the rest of them, and out here she wasn't going to let that change or him get all chivalrous on her now. Besides, Jean knew that if she didn't shift soon, her nerves might get the better of her. Buzzing with adrenalin, she cursed,  _Frak it,_  and stood up. Up and free from the bushes, she felt like she'd jumped off a cliff. A person could suffer all the pre jump tension in the world, feel oneself quake at the fear of what could happen: the twitching terror pinning them in place, grasping for the safety and the security of the rock face, but in the end, you just had to jump – there was nothing else for it. And as she shot out of hiding, she felt that fear double, then stream line into not thinking: into a moment of pure freedom as the fear of what might happen was taken away to be replaced by what  _will_  be. She stood still, her hair vibrant against the stunning wet green of the forest, while she waited for a shot, and the following pain – then the thump of a shell that would be the last thing that ran through her mind before the gods took her… but nothing came.

Sam's hand touched her shoulder and she almost embarrassed herself.

"Shit, Sam," she hissed. He flashed his white teeth at her.

"So far, so  _not_  dead. That's a good thing, right?"

"Maybe," she muttered. His hand stayed on her shoulder as they rounded on the hut, more of a hunters shack she noticed in coming closer – skins hanging from the outside. A parade of fishing lines (useful) and knives (even more useful) stashed in leather wraps displayed on the porch.

Her foot tenderly touched the first step, and the mother frakker groaned like an old camel; squealing like it was alive. The sound sang through the pitter patter of the soaking forest and she and Sam froze stiller than a deer in gunsight. She waited for the shot again, and the pain, but nothing came, and so, with a 'frak me' look at Sam, she tried the next step; keeping close to the edges of the steps, nearer the support from the vertical beams. Mercifully, this one only seemed to protest at her weight in a mild pony-like manner, and she breathed out the breath she'd been holding while her heart thudded.

At the top of the steps, they peered into the blank windows but nothing showed out from within; the darkness inside so total that only their faces showed back, reflected ghostlike in the glass, gaunt with hollow dark eyes from need.

"Oh, shit," she muttered for no real reason, except from being tired beyond belief at the tension. She marched forwards; sensing Sam's large body heat behind her, and then turned the handle on the door. She expected it to be locked. She expected to be dead. She never expected it to open as it swung silently away from her (the quiet movement in complete contrast to the cranky steps up to it). From within came the smell of a damp air slightly different in fragrance from the wet air outside, smelling less fresh; more mildewed and unhealthy. She sniffed, not sure if it was a good sign or not, for it indicated that no one; human or cylon had stepped inside the hut for a very long time, but with that comfort came a distinct lack of promise on the food front.

She paused at the entrance and Sam made no move behind her to suggest that they hurry in, either. She pressed her lips together, not dithering, just battling with her levels of hope; for in standing here, there was still the promise that they might find something. Once inside, she'd know for sure if it mean't another night going hungry.

Sam dropped his chin onto her head. "Come on my fearless defender – let's see what, if anything, this dinner has to offer - beyond a fishing trip tomorrow or a battle with some beast."

Jean closed her eyes and reached back to grip his hand and then led him inside.

* * *

It was noon the next day when they returned to the rest, to find out that none of the other teams had, had any luck on the food front. There was also still one team yet to return, and that an hour after the return deadline, Sam called for a moment of silence in honour of, before they all moved off in grief.

In the back of the bus, Jean clutched close to her body the knives and fishing poles they'd discovered on the outside of the hut, guarding them as warily as she did the supply of canned and dried foodstuffs they'd found inside. They had enough food for a couple of days now and also the resources to catch more. It wasn't much, but it was a start. She'd also guarded something else. Her one night of comfort. The one night where she and Sam had taken a step they'd never taken before, and one that she knew they never would again – knowing now that how they felt about one another was as intense as anything; but not loaded with the frisson that would make them work as anything more than team mates. As friends closer than siblings, and ones who could rely on each other always, but that in their lovemaking, they finally knew it not to be. It had been good, comforting, wanted - needed even, and bridged a gap; just like the food they'd found.

She glanced over at Sam as he sat half watching the road: his unattended fork shoved deep into a can of unidentifiable meat in his lap. She touched his thigh, bringing his attention to her, and caught his eye, then nodded. They'd done it. Kept the others and themselves alive for another day. It was all they could do and would continue to do, until something changed. For it was what was needed.


End file.
